“What was the job?” he asked. “Get the laptop? Kill us?”
Taser looked away and licked his lips again. It was a brutal tell. He’d be a shit poker player.
Clay’s nose was bunged up with dried blood as he limped out of his tent; the doubled length of bloody rope still dangled from one hand. Despite what she’d said about “not being a part of this” when she’d tapped out of the beatdown, Lawrence hadn’t gone far. She was still outside, her nails raw from being picked at, and she blanched when she saw Clay.
He dropped the rope and got ready to say something smart-assed about sitting on the fence. Before he could get it, someone started shouting on the other side of camp, where Ezra’s tent was.
“We just wanted to teach you both a lesson,” Lawrence blurted out.
“Save it,” Clay snarled at her as he headed toward the sounds of alarm.
Clay handed the gun to Grade, grabbed Taser by the throat, and shoved him onto the bed. He straddled the other man’s thigh, knee braced on the mattress, and shoved the Taser into the soft grease-covered skin under his jaw.
“How many did you send after Ezra?”
“I can call them off,” Taser said. “You just need—”
Clay shoved the taser into his mouth before he could finish that sentence. Panic widened the man’s eyes, and he squirmed violently as he tried to get away. Clay tightened his grip and waited for him to gag himself out.
“How many?” he asked again.
Taser held up his good hand with two fingers extended. Then he jabbed them at Clay’s eyes as he bucked under him in a desperate attempt to get away. If he hadn’t done that, Clay didn’t know if he’d have pulled the trigger or not. Although—he remembered the crack of a hand against Grade’s face—he probably would have. Clay had never been a man to bluff.
The trigger clicked, and 1000 volts plugged into the wet flesh under Taser’s tongue. His eyes rolled back in his head, and his whole body arched up in a bow-tight convulsion as the charge poured through him. His heels drummed against the floor, and his jaw clenched so tight that the plastic cracked as his teeth clamped down on it.
Some of his teeth too.
Clay let go of the trigger and let Taser flop bonelessly onto the bed, still twitching as his muscles tried to deal with the jolt they’d gotten. Drool spiked with blood dribbled out of his mouth and onto the bedspread.
“Is he dead?” Grade asked.
“Not yet,” Clay said grimly as he straightened up. There was a warm, wet patch under his knee where the man had lost control of his bladder. He made a mental note to order himself a new mattress and turned to Grade. “Stay here. Call Ezra and see if you can get through.”
Grade nodded while Clay quickly changed the cartridge on the Taser and then swapped it with Grade for the gun. There was a pair of old sweats tipped out of the laundry basket, and he grabbed them to pull them quickly on. The thin material clung to his damp skin as he pulled them up his legs and left them slung low around his hips.
He grabbed Taser by the front of his Kevlar vest and dragged him off the bed. The man hit the floor with a heavy thud but didn’t even groan. His head hung laxly from his neck as Clay dragged him over the bloody, slippery floor and out onto the landing.
While they’d been upstairs, the last walking member of Taser’s team had turned over the ground floor of Clay’s house. The couch had been ripped open, holes bashed in the walls, and the TV smashed and tipped over onto the floor.
“No sign of it down here,” the man yelled without looking up as he emptied the trash onto the floor and kicked through it. “Did either of them talk?”
“Most people would say you can’t shut me up,” Clay said conversationally from the top of the stairs. The man jerked his head up and stared at Clay in shock for a heartbeat before he went for his gun. He was too slow. Clay dropped his aim and fired a bullet into the ground between his feet, gouging a splintered hole into the polished floorboards. “Try again and I’ll put one in your throat.”
Clay dropped Taser’s limp body and kicked him down the stairs. The man tumbled down the steps and landed at the bottom, arms and legs bent at painful angles. For a moment, Clay thought the fall had finished him off, but then he coughed out a ragged exhale and spluttered blood down his cheek.
The last man standing went to bolt for the door. Clay rolled his eyes and shot the ground again, this time close enough to the guy’s foot that it took a chunk out of the heavy rubber sole of his boot. It made the man flinch and freeze in place.
“Don’t fucking move,” Clay warned as he came down the stairs. He stepped over Taser and walked over to the last man, gun still in his hand. The guy swallowed hard and went to say something. Clay didn’t want to hear it. “Shut up.”
The man did. His teeth clicked audibly as he closed his mouth. Clay took the gun out of his holster, stepped back, and thumbed the button to eject the magazine. It dropped onto the floor, and he kicked it away from him. Then he nodded over to Taser.
“Take him and get the fuck out of my house,” Clay said. “Count of three.”
Indecision froze the team’s last man for a second. Clay pointed the gun at the man’s head.
“One,” he said. “Two.”
In the twenty or so years that Clay had been threatening people for fun and money, no one had ever called his bluff on that. Today was no different. The man bolted forward, grabbed Taser under the arms, and dragged him backward out of the house. The last Clay saw of them was Taser’s boots as they bounced out the door.
